This one had been rumored for a while but Naughty Dog has made it official. After seeing that the multiplayer component of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception was still very popular, they’ve decided to make it entirely free-to-play. This means that you can now go head to head on Uncharted 3’s multiplayer without actually needing to own the full game, which is very good in its own right if we do say so ourselves.

The new downloadable free-to-play option will allow you to progress up to level 15 for free and play in the same player pool as people who own the full game. Once you hit level 15, you can continue to play with no time limit, you just won’t level up anymore. In a brilliant move, the game will continue to keep track of your XP progress, and if you ever choose to purchase the full game, you retroactively gain access to the levels you would have progressed through for your time played. In the free-to-play version, you still get all of the base maps from the original retail release of Uncharted 3, but you won’t immediately have access to any of the DLC maps.

If you aren’t interested in buying the full game, the free-to-play multiplayer supports microstranactions which allow you to unlock various things related to gameplay and progression for a small fee. You can pay to unlock higher tiers of levels (up to 25 for $4.99), or pay a larger fee to unlock play all the way to level cap ($19.99). In addition, while the free-to-play game initially includes only competitive play, you can pay to unlock other modes like cooperative adventure ($11.99) and arena play ($9.99). All the DLC map packs are also available for purchase, along with individual guns and character skins.

Fans who already own the game aren’t being left out though. Naughty Dog has some very special gifts for you as a way of saying thank you. Next time you log in online you’ll see a custom Naughty Dog Paw on your rank icon and you’ll receive the Naughty Dog Paw shirt for your custom characters. Finally to celebrate the launch of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception Multiplayer Free-to-Play every character item and every character skin in multiplayer will now have more color options. These new color options are completely free.

Naughty Dog isn’t finished yet either, over the coming months, more than 40 additional DLC items will be made available. Every DLC drop will have a theme. They also recently released patch 1.17 which included some big changes to the game. And if all that wasn’t enough, Naughty Dog and Sony announced the release of the Game of the Year digital version of the game, retailing for a slick $39.99. This new downloadable version of the game includes all of the multiplayer DLC along with the single-player campaign. Not bad considering it includes all the previous DLC, but at $29.99 I think it would have been drastically more compelling. The game is great, but it is a few years old now, not to mention the fact that its digital.

So that’s it folks, tons of great news for folks that may be new to the community as well as folks that have been there for a while. If you’ve been in the community for a while, hit up the comments and let new users know what they are in store for.

I am the Co-Ceo of DLT Digital Media. We are a company that is focused on developing new and innovative web properties in addition to developing WordPress based web sites for others. But before I was all that, I was a gamer.